RELEASES

A Rock In The Weary Land is not only a magnificent
record, it marks the return of The Waterboys name and introduces the
new Sonic Rock sound. Mike Scott recently found time to meet up and
talk about it in a cafe in West London. Interview by David Billson.

Q: Why did you decide on using The Waterboys
name for this album?

A: If I put the record out as Mike Scott only
a certain amount of people will hear it. On the other hand if I put
it out as a Waterboys record, then it'll be heard by many, many more
people. And to me there's no difference between Mike Scott & The Waterboys;
they both mean the same thing. They mean myself and whoever are my current
travelling musical companions.

Q: Are you proud of the Waterboys name?

A: Very much so. I didn't take the decision
lightly; I thought about it a lot, but now that I've done it I'm very
glad.

Q: You said in an interview after Still Burning
that you had the production of the next album already in your head.
Now that it's actually finished has it turned out how you thought?

A: No, it evolved a lot. I did a series of demos
in the middle of 98 and at that time my intention was to have a mix
of my own song writing and singing with drum programming and effects.
While there are a few elements remaining of that on the finished record,
it didn't really turn out like that at all. My vision of the record
evolved as I worked on it. Dave Ruffy who'd been in the Waterboys a
long time ago played with me again for some shows in 98 and in the wake
of that I asked him to do drum programmes for 4 songs; Let It Happen,
My Love Is My Rock, We Are Jonah and Crown. They were very good but
when I started to put my own instruments on top it just didn't turn
me on. Something wasn't breathing in it so I rerecorded the songs with
drummers and I enjoyed that more. The only drum program one I kept was
His Word Is Not his Bond which was done later on for me by a young guy
called Rowan Stigner.

Q: So it's a learning process all the time?

A: It was yes; the record had its own evolution.
It comprised many stages and the programming was only one of them. Another
was when I was going down Denmark Street in London buying effects pedals.
I wanted to explore with the sound of every instrument. Still Burning
was a very straight record; the guitars sound like guitars, the organs
sound like organs, the drums sound like drums. So I made a conscious
decision on this one that the sound of every instrument was gonna be
different ; sculpted and created individually . And because I didn't
have any other band members at the time to evolve this with I had to
develop almost the whole culture of the sound myself. So for over a
year I was trying out different effects and trying to manipulate them
in my own unique ways. That's all over the record. As you can hear.

Q: When did you write the songs?

A: Mostly written the last 2 months of 97 and the first 4 months of
98.

Q: A long time ago. Has it taken since then
to evolve them?

A: In terms of finished song writing, they were pretty much evolved
straight away. The songs emerged in a cluster. The songs on Still Burning
were all written at different times; Rare, Precious And Gone was written
in 86 and there were a few from 92 and 93. But this one is all one period,
and I think the record has that consistent character.

Q: Where were the songs written?

A: Most of them were written in a little bare
room at the top of a rented house on Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, where
I lived back then. But Let It Happen and Crown were written in Findhorn
in a house I used to have there. Is She Conscious? was written in my
head while out and about in London.

Q: Does that happen often?

A: No. I may think of a line or a phrase, but
to get the majority of a song "on the move" like I did with that one
is very rare.

Q: How are they usually written?

A: Usually sitting down with my guitar and sometimes
the piano. I have a room in my house where I do nothing but work on
music.

Q: What was the biggest influence on the album?

A: I'd lost interest in rock in 1986, after
I made This Is The Sea. All my youthful rock dreams were realised with
that record. So I moved on. Then I got involved in Hank Williams, Country
music, Folk music, Gospel music and all kinds of things, and I didn't
come back to listening to rock until during the Still Burning tour in
97. The first record I bought that brought me back to it was When I
Was Born For The Seventh Time by Cornershop. I just liked the title.
And then when I listened to it I liked the record. Then I bought Ok
Computer and I thought that was a great record and I started listening
to tons and tons of things which all had an impact. I remember Ian McNabb
gave me The Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole and I was blown away
by "The Private Psychedelic Reel". Later I got into Deserter's Songs
by Mercury Rev and Soft Bulletin by Flaming Lips. I can't say that any
one record or artist had a more significant influence. Lots of different
ones did in different ways. In fact what I got most from these records
was a sense of what's possible with rock in the year 2000. From there
it was down to me.

Q: The album sleeve features you and the gold
Steel Deville guitar. Is that the only electric guitar you use on the
album?

A: It's the number one guitar all over the album,
but not the only one.

Q: It's your favourite one, is it?

A: Not live, but in the studio it is, yes.

Q: Tell me about the other musicians on the
album. What did they add to the record?

A: Thighpaulsandra plays on more of the record
that anyone apart from me. I wanted someone who could give me all those
mellotron and synth sounds that I can't do myself, and to play them
with command. He brought all that. He also brought some of his own ideas
- for example the marvellous strings line at the end of My Love Is My
Rock is his melody, played on a mellotron. It was very important to
me to have someone around who would give me an extra something that
I might not be able to think up myself. Jeremy Stacey plays drums on
Let It Happen, My love Is My Rock, Is She Conscious? and We are Jonah.
I had recorded them all with other drummers beforehand, but I wasn't
satisfied with the versions so I called Jeremy. I'd worked with him
in 97 and figured he was the man who could give the songs the grooviness
I wanted. No other drummer plays as well with me as he does. He's a
great listening drummer. So I brought him in and over a period of a
few months he played on those 4 tracks. There's Richard Naiff too -
he's playing piano on We Are Jonah and The Wind in The Wires. He covers
the areas on piano I can't, and he's not afraid of noise either. If
I'd met him earlier he'd have played on more of the record.

Q: Do you welcome the suggestions that musicians
come up with?

A: I do, yes. As long as they don't have any
preciousness if it doesn't work, because I make decisions very quickly
in the studio and I know immediately if I dig something or not.

Q: The album is produced by yourself. Does
this give you more freedom to try more things, and not be as restricted
as when someone else is telling you what to do?

A: Well it would never be case of people telling
me what to do ! That never happens ! The last 4 records I did were co-productions.
I did them with Barry Beckett (Room To Roam), Bill Price (Dream Harder)
and then Niko Bolas (Bring 'Em All In and Still Burning) . This was
because I wore myself out producing Fisherman's Blues which went on
for so long that it distorted my relationship with the band members.
I was determined never to let that happen again. And I didn't want the
responsibility of production anymore. It's a lot of weight for one pair
of shoulders, to write songs, lead the band, be musical director and
produce too. I didnt have the energy or the capacity to do it again
until now. On the other hand co-producing is easy for me in some ways,
and all my various co-producers brought a lot to the party but co-production
doesn't bring the best out of me. The way it works is this : I might
listen to a track in the studio and think the band doesn't play so well
together on the last chorus and I'd say so to my co-producer. Then he
might say "It's fine, don't worry about it." Now I may be hearing something
that he's not hearing and I might be right. But when I co-produce I
often just swing with what the other guy says and let it be. When I'm
producing myself that doesn't happen. I re-record a song over and over
until I feel it's right. A Rock In The Weary Land is the product of
that process. So certain songs were re-recorded until they were done
to my own highest standards. Thats a commitment that I have to make
to my own recording process because I recognise that it makes a better
record. It's the same value that I employed on A Pagan Place, This Is
The Sea and Fishermans Blues. So Im going to keep producing myself.

Q: Which song on the album was the hardest
to record?

A: Let it happen was the one that was recorded
the most number of times.

Q: Why was that?

A: Well I did the first version with drum programming,
then a version with a second drum program, then a version with one human
drummer, and then another version with another drummer.Then another
drummer. Till I got it sounding right. And do you know, with that song
I didn't know what "sounding right" meant till I got to it. I just knew
what I had Wasn't It Yet and had to keep going till I got it.

Q: The album was recorded and mixed without
a record deal in place. Did that ever concern you?

A: Yes absolutely. Sometimes in the studio I'd
be thinking "who's gonna release this...maybe nobody's gonna release
this !" I just had to keep digging deep into my self belief and believe
in what I was hearing from the speakers and hang in there. Once I started
my manager and I believed that it would be better to go with the finished
record to the record companies so they could really hear what they were
getting. If we had gone with half finished tracks I think they'd maybe
not have got it. So we had to go with the finished thing. That meant
that I had to hang on and have faith in myself and the record and it
worked !

Q: You've gone with RCA ; was it the best
deal?

A: RCA was the best company. I wouldnt go with
a record deal because of the terms of the agreement but because it's
the right company. That's the decision : what's the right company. Only
after that's answered does the question become what's the right deal.
It wasn't specifically that RCA was a major, but that was a part of
it. It was also that my manager and I had a particular vision of which
tracks would make singles and they got it. That was the crucial moment
for me. I felt "OK, they get the album, they are going to work it in
the right way."

Q: You did some live shows towards the end
of the recording - Milton Keynes, Greenock and Edinburgh. You said that
you were showcasing new songs. How important is that in the whole album
making process? What do you get out of that sort of show?

A: There's the pleasure of playing the shows;
the musical pleasure, which is a big spur. I say that's about 70% of
why the shows happen. You know, I want to play ! And I want to see if
people dig the new songs. And also there's a desire to let people hear
what's coming, so when the record eventually comes out it's not going
to be a completely sudden development for them. I had an instinct that
doing the Milton Keynes gig in particular would ripple far beyond the
venue and it did - it was all over the Internet with people talking
about it.

Q: So you got what you wanted ?

A: Yes and I got some feedback on the songs.
I read what people said and spoke to fans after the show. I got a sense
of which songs they liked, which songs they didn't like. There was one
song, Anatomy Of A Love Affair which got some bad feedback. That was
very interesting for me ! I'd never dreamed that anybody would dislike
that song. It was recorded for the album and I might well have included
it if I hadn't got the bad feedback. But when I reflected on it I kind
of agreed with it. On the other hand The Wind In The Wires had only
just been written. When I saw how much people liked it, I recorded it
in a hurry to get it on the album. I should say that if I believed in
a song strongly it wouldn't matter what feedback it got - it would go
on the record regardless. But sometimes bad feedback can reveal to me
that I have a doubt about a song myself. Very helpful !

Q: So are we likely to see Anatomy Of A Love
Affair on a B-side?

A: You will, yes.

Q: Overall the first impression one has upon
hearing the new album is the Sonic Rock sound as you've called it. How
did this sound come about?

A: It really comes from somewhere deep within
me. As I say, listening to all these recent records gave me a sense
of what's possible with rock today. Also I'm very competitive when it
comes to rock'n' roll and when I plugged back into rock not only did
I get a buzz out of it, I also got a sense of "I'm gonna show them;
I'm gonna beat him; Im gonna do something better than that". I can't
help it. I'm fitted with that software internally ! So I was hungry
to make something I was really proud of; and that meant something that
was original, that was really me. I like to use instruments my own way.
Similarly I like to use effects my own way too. I'll combine effects
to make something I hope no one has never heard before. For example
there's a sound on His Word Is Not His Bond which I call a "Trem-wah"
that no one to my knowledge has ever made before. It's done with a distorted
organ through a tremelo pedal and then sent back through a customised
wah wah pedal with a dial on it that I can turn very very slowly, giving
a slow, deep tonal sweep. The wah effect "writhes" through the tremelo
and the distortion makes the whole sound froth and buzz. When I'm manipulating
the effect I'm drawing on the emotion I've put into the song - His Word
Is Not His Bond is about a specific situation that I was very angry
about - and the emotion goes right from my guts into the manipulation
of the effect and then comes out of the speakers. The sound you hear
is directly risen from the emotion inside.

Q: How would you sum up the album in one sentence?

A: No I couldn't ! Its easier to do 20 years later.

Q: The first song on the album is Let It Happen.
You've said in interviews around the Bring 'Em All In period that you
were trying to be the best Mike Scott that you can. Does Let It Happen
carry on from there ? I mean when you say "Whatever needs to happen,
let it happen, let it be" are you saying whatever life throws at me,
I'm just going to do my thing and keep on going?

A: No! I've been asked this before in interviews
and people do seem to take that meaning from it. But that idea's more
in Questions on Still Burning ; "And though the whole world may crumble,
we know who we are". The Let It Happen line is different; it's an affirmation
based on the belief or knowledge that there's an intelligence behind
the whole universe that is working at all times through us even though
we might not often - or in some cases ever - perceive it. Nevertheless
there is something for our highest good that wants or needs to happen
in all situations at all times and to say "Whatever needs to happen,
let it happen" is saying : I allow the highest good to happen through
me. And keeping that belief and focus in the midst of madness and chaos
is what the song's about.

Q: Do you enjoy living in London?

A: I do and I don't. I like the edge it gives
me and I like being where all the music is. I dig being near the competition
and there are some thrilling things about London but a lot of it bores
me as well.

Q: The title track of the album is My Love
Is A Rock In The Weary Land. Where did this title come from?

A: It comes from an old gospel song The Lord
Is My Rock In The Weary Land.

Q: Why did you choose that?

A: I appreciate the idea of the Weary Land;
a kind of Waste land. And I know what they meant, those gospel singers;
this earthly life being the weary land, which they have to go through,
yet when they die they will be reunited with their true Home. And perhaps
they also meant the life of slavery as the Weary land as well. I was
going through a personal weary land at the time I wrote the song and
also I felt modern western culture had much about it that was a like
a grotesque wasteland so I was very sympathic to this idea of the weary
land. It was love that got me through my own weary land. Hence the title.

Q: What sort of love got you through - was
it actual love or spiritual love?

A: Oh, my missus. And divine Love. I believe
love is the real power behind the world. The song is saying no matter
how weary the weary land is, love will get me through it.

Q: It features the London Community Gospel Choir. What was it like working
with them ? Because the title came from a gospel song was it obvious
to use some sort of choir on it ?

A: At first I thought it was too obvious; I
wasn't gonna do it. I was just gonna have backing vocals but then I
changed my mind. Partly it was seeing other groups using gospel choirs
without really making use of them - just using them as backing vocal
sections. I wanted to do something with a gospel choir that had a real
gospel spirit, that really used them. In fact I'd wanted to work with
a gospel choir for a long time. I first went to gospel concerts in the
mid 80s - The Clark Sisters in Brixton I remember, with a huge choir
of over a hundred singers - and later when I lived in New York I went
to gospel concerts and churches. I love gospel music. It touches my
soul directly. Especially emotional downhome gospel music. Gospel singers
talk about "magnifying the lord" and that's exactly what they do. They
enable spirit to land. I always thought that if I ever write a gospel
song I will definitely use a choir, so I'm glad that I've done it. I'll
do it again.

A: Well, you know it could be anything...love,
money, hopes. Everybody knows the feeling of loss and I'm one of these
people who if I've got a feeling, I don't deny it. I want to experience
it totally, then move on and that's what "send the rain" means.

Q: Is She Conscious? Who is this song about?

A: Its not about anyone in specific. It began
as a song about an iconic, untouchable woman and I just had the single
phrase "Is She Conscious ?". I started to write lines that could follow
that, like "Of her beautiful mistake", "Is she really wide awake" and
so on and the song grew from there.

Q: Is We Are Jonah just a story?

A: Its a kind of barbed nonsense song.

Q: Theres nothing hidden in there? You're
not using it as a metaphor for London or life?

A: Well, I had the line "We are Jonah rolling
along in the teeth of a whale" for a very long time, must have been
for 10 years. There is stuff in there but I don't want to analyse it.

Q: "This little boy comes to destroy, cold-eyed, grim faced in swathes
of vengeance clad." Very powerful stuff. Who or what is Malediction
about?

A: I'm putting myself in the mind of someone
who is seeking revenge. Its not an autobiographical song like Long Way
To The Light. I put myself into the third person almost like telling
a story. For a while Malediction was called The Love Song of Slobodan
Milosevic until I asked myself : what do I really know about Slobodan
Milosevic ?

Q: There is a haunting swirling guitar / wind
type sound in the track..

A: Yes, it's a keyboard holding a single very
low note, through an extremely distorted Guitar amp and processed through
the customised wah-wah pedal. I'm turning it very slowly, teasing out
the tones, making it sound like wind.

Q: Who do you feel is Dumbing Down The World?

A: Well, it's not aimed at a single person or persons; it's aimed more
at a cultural energy that seems to be working through a lot of people.
The song is intended to sound like it was recorded in hell, with a Devil
singing it.

Q: The distortion on the vocals...?

A: I'm singing through one of those Bluesblaster
electric harmonica miscrophones and then it's sent through a unit called
a Micro-synthesizer.

Q: At the end of the song theres some sort
of buzzing / fly sound. Why ?

A: Oh that yeah, that's flies buzzing around
a corpse. I wanted to get in the song the grotesqueness of the Dumbing
Down process, the hellishness of it.

Q: Why did you use the intro sample on His
Word Is Not His Bond ("The Liar" a nineteen twenties recording of a
gospel preacher, Rev E.D. Campbell) ?

A: I felt that he was singing about the same
thing that I was singing about in my song. Just that really.

Q: Night Falls On London is 50 seconds of
instrumental. What's that all about?

A: Its from an early version of Let It Happen.
It was the outro.

Q: Can you explain what The Charlatan's Lament
is about?

A: Its just a song. There are loads of things
behind it but it's not one of those like Let It Happen or Its All Gone
where I can say it's specifically about something. I think that if I
was to dissect it it would take away the mystery of the song. Its just
a song. Well..:".just" is the wrong word, but it's a big favourite of
mine. I like it a lot.

Q: When you played The Wind In The Wires live
earlier in the year it was just acoustic guitar and piano. You said
it was a last minute addition to the album. Did you have to work it
into a rock song, or was the intention for it to always have the rock
edge?

A: I always intended to record it with bass
and drums. It was recorded in (bass player) Livingston Brown's little
studio. There were 4 of us in this tiny space and we had the window
open as well. His studio is on a main road. If you listen with headphones
you can hear a few cars buzzing past.

Q: The final track is Crown. Is it an autobiographical
song?

A: Yes, but it's not just about me; it could
be anyone. I think we all as human beings have similar experiences -
having and losing, trying and only sometimes making it, living, fighting,
struggling, using and losing power, being human. And then I'm saying
- this comes from Gospel music, but I believe it to be a universal truth
- that when I'm touched by the highest, or God, or spirit, or Higher
Self or whatever name you want to put on the Power that is behind the
universe, I become one with creation, the Real me; that's what the Crown
is.

Q: What can we expect from The Waterboys on
record in the future?

A: The next album, as you probably know, is
the Fishermans Blues unreleased album. That will be an unusual record.
It won't sound so much like Fishermans Blues; it's actually more like
This Is The Sea, oddly enough, with songs centred around my piano like
many on that album. The difference is that Steve and Anto are letting
fly on every track and the music has a live, organic feel in common
with the "Fisherman's Blues" album. It's the "missing link" really between
the two records; the moment when The Waterboys were the greatest band
in the world, and when our music metamorphosed, but was never heard.

Q: So people are in for something special?

A: Yes they are. And I'm going to overdub on
the songs and mix them with modern values .